Folks:
I have two old Pontiac GTO's sitting in my garage, I've painted one myself
and have learned to perform minor body work. Knowing what I know about
dent removal, when I heard about a product called Ding King I was
skeptical. Using a glue gun, special adhesive glue sticks combined with a
small bridge that goes over the ding, you apply the melted resin to the a
flat plastic foot that sits at the end of a screw shaft called a pulling
tab. Then, you put the resin covered screw on the center of the dent,
this goes against what I've learned about removing dents, but this tool is
suppose to be applied to small door dings in automotive sheet metal. Once
the pulling tab is attached to the dent via the adhesive, you put the
bridge over the top of the screw, then you attach the pulling knob, a
start shaped device that screws down on to the pulling tab. As you screw
downward the pulling knob comes in contact with the bridge, and begins to
pull the metal upwards. Here's and example on eBay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=35625&item=2470873681
Anyway, my Overlander has two dents in the classic locations, one is curb
side, rear, where the body shell curves over the head, the classic "hit a
limb," scenario, it's about 8" X4" in size. The second is curb side, front
lower corner where I suspect the trailer was jack-knifed backing it up.
The dent is on the belly pan where it curves up from beneath the trailer.
I found the Ding King on eBay ($25.00 included shipping and extra glue
sticks.) and decided to give it try. Well I'm happy to say it's done a
pretty good job, most of the upper dent has been removed though it still
shows a little bit of a ripple. I need to keep working it, but I'm
hopeful I'll get most of the dent out. As mentioned the tool is really
intended for door dings, but the aluminum is so soft the ding king had no
trouble pulling the dent out. You have to continue to work your way
around it pulling out creases as you find them.
>From an automotive standpoint the idea is to work the dent out from the
back starting on the outside, with your hammer, and working your way
slowly in toward the center, tapping lightly to avoid stretching the
metal. I tried to apply this same philosophy to the dent in my Airstream
using the Ding King, and it didn't work well, I had to end up going right
to the middle of the dent, then work my way back out toward the edge. For
those of you with softball size dents, give it a try it may work for you
with only a small investment.
David Pfeffer